Projects / Programmes
Support networks of youth in psychosocial distress
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 5.07.00 |
Social sciences |
Criminology and social work |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| S215 |
Social sciences |
Social problems and welfare, national insurance |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 5.04 |
Social Sciences |
Sociology |
youth, psychosocial distress, support, users perspectives, drugs, inclusiveness, helping professions
Researchers (7)
Organisations (2)
Abstract
Research findings in Slovenia show that youth facing psychosocial distress cannot manage to find or reach the existing supportive services, activities or organizations for various reasons, or they are left-out or excluded from the support they’ve found or reached. These findings represent the starting point of the project “Support networks of youth in psychosocial distress”. The fundamental goals of the project are: to find out (a) how youth describe their own position when experiencing different critical situations and the responses to these positions by existing supportive networks, (b) how to find, address, include or withhold youth in the supportive activities network and (c) to outline the characteristics of adequately condensed, interconnected as well as qualitatively and/or quantitatively (re)formed network of (non)formal forms of support of youth in psychosocial distress in order to ensure them the conditions to lead a healthy and responsible life in an including society, which is safe for young people.
Based on the experiences reported by youth and the analysis of the existing network of (non)formal support of youth in psychosocial distress, the overall aim of the project is to learn how to expand or reform this network to become closer to the youth, their needs, life circumstances and contexts. The specific consideration of the project will be focused to drawing closer the support network towards youth, who are (1.) coping with earlier phases of psychosocial distress, (2.) drop-out of the support system due to too loose or too narrow network of support and (3.) to youth who are using psychoactive substances (all of the points above are stated separately to facilitate comprehension, whereas real-life situations show their interconnections).
The project is based on the findings, that factors hindering Slovenian youth receiving the support are linked not only to objectively inaccessible sources of support (e.g. adequate number of places, geographical proximity, free services), but (even more so) to their subjective accessibility, which is founded on youth’s perception, experiencing and evaluating sources of support. These sources present the criteria for valuing the sense of using the support and directing their mode of preparedness for entering and remaining in a support network.
Youth in earlier phases of distress do not want to or cannot enter the existing support network. Some of them decline the existing forms of help or programs because they are afraid of the consequences of inclusion (e.g. jurisdictional alienation of the child from the parents, diagnosis stated in the medical record etc.) or they are afraid of the stigma such inclusion brings. They link this inclusion with categories »I am not normal«, »I am insane«, »I am disturbed« and similar categorizations which are linked to mental distress in an individually focused society. Therefore, the project is oriented to the question, how to re-model the network in a way that would be able to find, approach and in a youth-safe mode assure the support on a wider specter of continuum, i.e. from non-inclusion towards the approaches which totalize and embody the whole identity. Moreover, youth in earlier phases of distress sometimes cannot recognize, verbalize or conceptualize their difficulties and distress in line with terminology of the existing, often specialized (especially formal forms of) support network. Having this in mind, the additional focus of the project is formed in the question, how youth acknowledge, describe and verbalize initial phases of their distress in all the varieties of the phenomena. The results of this question would be plausible help for many professions to acknowledge and recognize this variety.
Youth that can reach the support network drop-out for many reasons or leave it »too early«, which is extensively impacted by the aspect of (dis)satisfaction with the received support. This subsequently (de)motivates them by keeping the c
Significance for science
The user's perspective in the field of mental health research and psychosocial distress is in our area as well as wider, overlooked approach, which is gaining its importance for its relevance. It represents a use of participatory elements of research in a number of ways, even in the sense that researchers do not derive from the positions of omniscience, but from the assumption that the participants in the research are those who have the most knowledge in a certain field (in the form of experiences), that is necessary to be reached through appropriate research approaches.
New insights about youth, who are experiencing distress, and those, close to them, are relevant as they enable insight into a hidden but professionally important area. We live in a time when young people are living more and more atomized lives and different support and help-professions are facing a challenge of how to reach this increasingly invisible population. It is a prerequisite for the development of more up-to-date support approaches, which are one of the most pressing professional challenges in our area, to reach and give voice to young people who experience different forms of psychosocial distress.
Another aspect of participativeness is important, that is the openness of the research group for cooperation and youth initiatives, both in terms of opening up new fields of content, new partners in dialogue in the research and new approaches, how to capture and give them the chance to be heard. The project will contribute to the development of science in the methodological context, as it will involve young people as active co-creators of the research process. In the field of researching the system of support for youth experiencing distress in Slovenia, such an approach to research has not been often used so far, therefore the possible ways and advantages of this approach are not sufficiently experienced. In this sense, the project will also extend the field of knowledge about exploring user perspectives with active participation of youth, who are also the subject of the research.
Due to their characteristics, the results of the project will be directly transferable into practice. In particular, formal support providers for youth can use them as their guidelines for (re)designing services for young people.
Significance for the country
There is already a number of organizations in our area, at different levels, whose task is to care for and support young people, who are experiencing psychosocial distress at least in a certain segment (school counselling, educational institutions, boarding schools, psychiatry, non-governmental organizations ...). Though, the problem is that their action is not sufficiently coordinated. Also, these subjects themselves point out how much gaps in the support network are there, especially in a sense of more universally capturing young people who find themselves in distress in the way that these approaches would not be stigmatizing. The survey will identify points where the support network is particularly unsustainable or show the possibilities of its integration.
The development of support networks that will emerge from the situation, as perceived by young people, has the potential for greater efficiency and greater potential for young people to participate in and co-create them. The view of young people as potentially competent bearers of responses to their own, as well as the questions of a wider society, is definitely a view that will be the leading paradigm of this research.
We will be interested in what are the circumstances in which young people can work to the fullest extent and realize their potential. On the other hand, we will also be interested in obstacles that prevent young people from fully and healthy participating in society.
A particular focus of our project will be on those young people who dissident from various sources of support. This aspect is a feature of today's time, where informal support is becoming increasingly rare, and on the other hand, the professions fail to compensate for the shortcomings of community networks. In a complex and uncertain world where the future is not guaranteed to young people, complex needs are more and more often a reality, while organizations continue to function predominantly specifically, and are often inaccessible to those who need the most intensive support due to bureaucratic and financial constraints. In all areas, we see an increase in people who "do not belong anywhere", which is alarming from a wider social perspective. Potentially, it poses a threat to the deepening of inequality, which is more difficult to deal with.
For now, the Slovene society is relatively egalitarian, but the phenomena described above pose the danger of changing.
The results of the research will through the light on areas that are currently deficient (community care, community work, strengthening peer support, fieldwork ...), but have great potential for development. In the development of this sphere, young people who have experience in seeking support can be included. Forms of support network that could be strengthened or developed on the basis of findings would be interdisciplinary, accessible to young people and integrated, which is rare for us at present. In this context, the project will contribute to building a social "infrastructure" in the field of support for young people in psychosocial distress, thereby pointing to the possibilities for a more meaningful functioning and networking activities within the state administration as well.
People, in particular young people, are the "key source" in terms of building a sustainable, egalitarian and healthy future, and therefore the state's profound contribution to the well-being of young people, who are co-creators of society and its culture, and interest in their perspective is by no means a lost investment.
